


did he who made the lamb make thee?

by mitch23k



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I wrote this like three months ago in a mad dash, I’m Always A Slut For Bookworm!Jason, and i just want to get rid of it, and im only posting it now bc im in a bad mood, so enjoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:22:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26915071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitch23k/pseuds/mitch23k
Summary: Bruce and Jason discuss literature and poetry. There’s totally no deeper meaning.
Relationships: Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne
Kudos: 55





	did he who made the lamb make thee?

Something’s wrong. 

Bruce senses it the moment he walks by the study. 

The door is shut, as usual. The lights are off, as usual. It’s quiet, as usual. Nothing strange on the surface.

But there’s the slightest wrinkle in the hand-woven carpet, one small crease. 

Bruce narrows his eyes and silently opens the door. 

He’s in pajamas, but there’s a batarang tucked into his waistband, and his left hand ghosts it as he flicks on the lights with the left. There, sitting in his chair, is a dark figure and Bruce grabs the batarang, pulls it out into the open, and-

“Whoa, deja vu,” Jason says, rolling his eyes. Well, one eye. The other is swollen shut, and his face is marred with blood. “You, batarang, me, target, hmm. Where have I seen this before?”

“Jason,” Bruce huffs, sheathing his weapon and striding quickly over. He spins the chair to face him and takes his son’s face in his hands. He can’t tell the blood from the cuts. “What happened?”

“Oh, I remember now,” Jason says, voice dripping with sarcasm. He looks more bored than anything. “It was in downtown Gotham, not fair from my home sweet home, right? ‘Bout two- oh wow, three years ago now. Ah, how time flies when you’re constantly trying to kill your dad, huh?”

Bruce’s hands absolutely don’t shake at that affectionate term. They don’t. That’d be completely unprofessional. His hands are steady, and it doesn’t make any sense why Jason is now smirking like he’s won. 

“Yes, I remember,” Jason continues, wistfully looking off into the distance. Bruce opens a desk drawer and pulls out some antiseptic wipes. “How could I forget the worst day of my life?” Bruce swallows. “Oh, wait, second worst day. I suppose Ethiopia takes the cake there, no? Or, actually, I guess Catherine’s overdose would be number two, so don’t worry B, you’re only at number three. Not shabby at all.”

“Where’s the wound?” Bruce replies, swiping gently at Jason’s cheek. 

“You’re no fun anymore, old man,” Jason sighs, finally giving up the dumb game. “Cut above my left eyebrow, behind my left ear, two buried somewhere in my hair that you’re not going to touch because I’m not in the mood for a haircut, and under my chin. It’s really not that bad, just a lot of blood. You can’t even see the bruises. Can we talk about Blake?”

Bruce is already cleaning cuts before Jay even finishes talking, ignoring the question, pressing featherlight touches that Jason definitively can barely feel but he keeps saying “ouch” anyway, obviously just to be ornery. None but the one above his eyebrow are going to require stitches, and most have already clotted. 

Bruce puts away the wipes and eyes Jason. His eyes drifted closed a few minutes earlier, and, sure enough like he said, there’s painful looking black-and-blue splotches all over his face, visible even on his dark skin. He’s dressed for combat, big black boots over his dark jeans, empty (ask later, Bruce notes) gun sheaths wrapped tightly around his thighs, his leather jacket zipped up to his chin. His hair looks wet. Bruce resists the urge to gently tousle those curls and instead squeezes the kid’s shoulder, intending to wake him up and lead him to a bathroom where he can stitch that cut. Before he can speak, however, Jason jolts and shoves his fist against his mouth, fighting back an exclamation. 

“What’s wrong with your shoulder?” Bruce grunts, kneeling down to get a better look. “You should’ve told me you had more injuries.” 

He unzips Jason’s jacket a fraction of an inch and receives a weak kick as reward for his efforts. He grabs Jason’s ankle to stay any other attack and looks right into his second son’s eyes. “Stop fighting me. You’re clearly tired. You’re going to lose. If we fight, I’ll knock you out and make you suffer Alfred’s mothering for a week. Is that what you want?”

“Don’t touch me.”

“Is that what you want, Hood?”

“Touch my shoulder again and I’ll fucking kill you.”

“Hood. Is it dislocated?”

Jason bares his teeth and  _ growls  _ then seems to feel tiredness weigh on him again. He leans back into the chair and groans. “It’s fine. Knocked it out of socket last week, it’s just sore. I’m jumpy tonight.”

”You’re jumpy every night.” Bruce surveys his legs and chest. “Any other injuries I should know about?”

“No.”

“Unzip your jacket, then.”

“Buy me dinner, I’ll think about it.”

“Not funny in the slightest. Are. You. Hurt.”

Jason sighs dramatically again. “I literally only came here to talk about Blake, Bruce. If we’re not going to have one of our literature discussions I’m just gonna bounce.” 

“Is Blake the name of some criminal or are we talking about William?”

“ _ ‘Little lamb, god bless thee, _ ’” Jason quotes as answer. 

“I will discuss the finer points of William Blake’s poetry with you if you tell me where else you’re injured.”

“You’re so fucking-“ Jason swallows whatever he was going to hurl Bruce’s way, clearly irritated. “Christ, I’m fine. Shoulder will get iced when I get home, I’ll put bandaids all over my ugly mug, everywhere else is just sore. No more injuries, just bruising.”

Bruce quirks an eyebrow.

“For fuck’s sake, I’m serious! You want me to dance a jig to prove it?”

“Okay, okay, relax,” Bruce makes an aborted movement to touch Jason’s hair, old habit, turns it instead into a stretch. “Would you like to move somewhere more comfortable for this discussion? If we go downstairs you can have the couch to yourself and I can fix us hot chocolate.”

“Pfft, you’re turning into Alfred in your old age, my friend.” Jason rolls his shoulders with a light grimace and snuggles deeper into the chair. “Nah, I’m good here. Listen, I was reading  Songs of Experience this morning and I totally figured out the metaphor Blake’s going for with “The Lamb” and “The Tyger”.”

Bruce refuses to sit in the chairs opposite to the front of the desk, chairs meant for nervous investors or soon-to-be-grounded children. He knows the symbolism of himself in one of those smaller chairs in comparison to Jason in the head chair would not be lost on the kid. Instead he leans his hip against the desk itself. “Ah, have you now? Congratulations. Hot chocolate as reward?”

“When I was, like, thirteen, I thought it was about Blake himself, like he started out an innocent little kid-“

“The lamb,” Bruce supplies absently, drumming his fingers on the wood. 

“Yeah, exactly, and as he aged - “Experience”, you know - he became the tiger, right?”

“Common interpretation.”

“Yeah. But then when you stole me-“

“Adopted you.”

“To-ma-to, tah-mah-to,” Jason over-enunciates with a shrug. Bruce suppresses a chuckle despite the situation. “Either way, when I moved here and you stuck me in that dumb school-“

“You adored every second you spent in that place.”

“Are you going to keep interrupting?” Jason spits with venom. “Goddamn, B, this is why everyone hates you. Fuck, bro. I liked learning, I didn’t like those asshole teachers who all either thought I was some charity case who couldn’t read because I’m poor or that I was secretly a computer genius because I’m brown. Aaaaaaand, all my classmates were bitches.”

“Terry Offerman works for the Riddler now, in case you were curious.”

“Oh, the guy who wrote “fag” on my locker during my first week?” Jason replied, bored. “Yeah, I know. Pretty sure I broke his arm last month.”

“Good job. Hot chocolate to show I’m proud of you?”

“You’ve never been proud of me,” Jason says casually, flipping his hair. 

Bruce breath stalls in his lungs. “That’s not-“

“Point is, at school that taught that “The Lamb” was about pre-industrial revolution or some shit,” Jason said with a ridiculously grandiose hand gesture, “and the tiger was America afterwards.”

As always with Bruce and his second oldest, they just pretend Jason hadn’t said that, “Hammer, chain, furnace?” Bruce queried, looking around. He wonders if there’s anything warm to drink anywhere in here. 

“Yeah, ‘cuz of that, yeah. Good catch.”

“‘S’what they taught me too,” Bruce says with his own eye-roll. Jason giggles and Bruce’s heart grows three sizes. “I don’t buy that interpretation.” 

Jason still has a little smile on his face when he continues. “Talia told me she wasn’t too into Blake, but she had always thought it was something like how people viewed inventions by Americans versus inventions by foreigners. Or something.”

“Talia’s very smart,” Bruce said, looking anywhere but Jason, who is definitively laughing at him. “That’s a good interpretation.” 

“Someone’s got a  _ cruuuuuush _ ,” Jason snickered, but then coughed wetly into his elbow. Bruce glanced over with concern. Jason groaned a little when he was done, but seemed fine, maybe a little sick from the rain. He grabs a robe off the back of the recliner, closest he can do without leaving the room, and lightly places it over Jason’s legs.

“Thanks,” he rasps, pulling it over his upper body with a sniffle. He must really be feeling his injuries and the cold, the way he accepts the gift. If healthy and comfortable Jason would be offended that Bruce offered. “Gah, where was I?”

“You were saying that you were chilly, and that we should go downstairs so you can lay down and I can make us some hot chocolate.”

“I’m starting to think,” Jason comments lightly, sneezing, “that you just really want hot chocolate.”

“Wanna know a secret? It’s where I was headed before I came in here. Don’t bother threatening to tell Stephanie, no one will ever believe you.”

Jason gives him a look that says “you’re ridiculous”, but there’s a fond little grin tugging at his lips. They always drank hot chocolate together after missions. Before. With Jason there’s a Before and After. Just like “The Lamb” and “The Tyger”. “The big bad Batman likes to tuck into some hot chocolate before he goes to bed? I’m telling Waylon.”

It’s Bruce’s turn to laugh. “You see Waylon often?”

“Yeah, we see each other at the bi-monthly “Gay Transmasc Anti-Heroes” meetings. At the community center,” Jason adds, straight-faced. “Harvey’s bi, but he stops in sometimes.”

“Is that so.”

“Yeah, Harley and Ivy should set up a “WLW Transfem Supervillians” one next door, don’tcha think?”

“I always support community outreach,” Bruce deadpans. Jason snorts. “Especially our community. Plus, it would be good for Ivy to make some more friends. Hopefully she doesn’t kill them this time.”

Jason shrugs. “Pam’s cool. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, I started thinking about...oh, four years ago? After the pit. Yeah, after the pit I started thinking “The Lamb” was me when I was Robin, and “The Tyger” was me afterwards.”

Bruce blinks. 

“Don’t-“ he starts, unsure what he’s even commanding Jason to cease, and lamely gapes open-mouthed instead. “Jay. Don’t.”

Jason winks at him. “‘Did he who made the lamb make thee?’ I always loved that line for how meta it is, y’know? But like. Now. It’s like, did the same Batman who saved you from the gutter watch as you transformed into this monster?”

“You’re not a monster,” Bruce tries, reaching out his hand again to-to- to touch his son, to run his hand through those unruly curls or caress his cheek or brush the pad of his thumb gently over Jason’s black eye. Before he can do any of that, though, his pajama shirt rises up with the movement, again revealing the batarang.

There’s a moment of silence. 

“Right,” Jason says, voice soft. “Do you bring weapons with you when Dick or Cass come to visit?”

“I thought. I thought you might be an intruder.”

“I am an intruder. I don’t live here.”

“This is as much-“ Bruce tries, but Jason barks out a sharp laugh, curled into himself a little bit. 

“This is as much my house as yours, huh?” Jason spins the chair in a slow circle, eyes shut. “I haven’t lived here since I was fifteen.”

“You’re my son,” Bruce insists, tugging his shirt down as if it matters anymore. “You’re my son, and I miss talking about books with you. I miss drinking hot chocolate with you. I wish you’d come home more often, not just when you desperately need medical attention and you have no other options.” He finally does it, takes a step forward and lets his fingers card through Jay’s hair, avoiding the cuts buried in there that he mentioned earlier. “I love you, Jason.” Bruce lets his hand trail down, cups Jason’s cheek.

For a moment, Jason leans into the touch, sighing sweetly at the contact. 

For a moment, it seems like everything is going to be alright. 

Then Jason gracelessly tugs his head away and scoots the chair about a foot to the left. “Forget it. Forget I said that about Blake, because that’s not even what it is. I was wrong. I figured it out this morning.”

Bruce stares at his empty hand where Jason’s soft - still soft, he’s still so young, God help him Jason’s only nineteen and he’s seen so much  _ pain  _ \- skin. Emotionlessly, Bruce says, without looking away, “And what interpretation have you decided on?”

“I’m not the lamb,” Jason replies, eyeing Bruce like he’s about to get jumped. “I never was. Street rats aren’t lambs. I’ve always been the tiger.”

Bruce is still staring at his hand when he says, “And who is the lamb?”

“Innocent, naive, doesn’t know shit about the world,” Jason lists. “Stuck in a perpetual state of childhood, perfect and pure and stupid. I dunno. Reminds me of you.”

Bruce closes his eyes. “Jason.”

“Everyone loves you, B. Well,” he chuckles, “in a manner of speaking. I know some crooks up at Arkham that aren’t very fond of you. But everyone hates me. Everyone. Even my own parents, even my ‘siblings’.” He uses air quotes with his hands. Bruce doesn’t laugh. “Doesn’t make much sense to me: tigers get shit done. Tigers get their meals on their own, tigers are high up on the food chain. Lambs are prey.”

“Jason.”

“And that’s what I always got wrong, pops, the poems aren’t about the same person. There’s no way one person could change so dynamically. It’s about two diametrically opposed people. Forget “I contain multitudes” yknow? Whitman was naive too. People are simple.” 

“Jason. Things aren’t that black and white.”

Now Jason laughs, a big, genuine laugh. He grips his stomach as he does it, a strange, pained look on his face. “Oh? Remember, old man, you’re the childlike lamb. Kids see things in black and white and so do you. There’s bad and there’s good.”

“I believe that. I also believe there’s transition between the two and no one is set as either,” Bruce shoots back. “People change. The lamb and the tiger are the same person or concept.”

“A valid interpretation,” Jason grunts, standing. “You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, Mr. Wayne. You’re wrong, obviously, but you’re entitled to that all the same.” Jason unzips his jacket, sticks his hand in an inner pocket while looking at Bruce.

Bruce doesn’t move save for one quirked eyebrow. 

Jason grins. “Not gonna reach for the batarang this time! Thank you kindly, Mr. Batman sir.” He fumbles around for a minute before producing the copy of  _ The Pearl  _ that Bruce had asked Talia to deliver to him for Hanukkah last month. “Like I said, I’ve been really wrapped up in Blake lately. No time for the Gawain poet, I’m afraid. Also, thanks for not mailing it to any of my safehouses. I always think it’s a bomb. Old habits, you know.”

Bruce does. It’s why he had a trusted friend of Jason’s hand deliver it. 

“So yeah, you can have this back. I’m already entangled in the great enigma of who I am and who some dude from the 1700s thinks I am, I don’t need this. The symbolism of you sending this to me isn’t lost on me, by the way.”

Bruce takes the book, if only to keep Jason at the calm level he’s at. “Just thought you’d enjoy it. No motive.”

“Dad loses his kid and is visited by a spectre who is a very different version of his baby?  _ Sure _ Bruce. No parallel at all.”

“You’re very intelligent, Jason. I still think you should sign up for community college courses,” he says, setting the book on the desk. “You love English too much to waste your knowledge of it on psychological debates with me and the occasional Shakespearian discussion with Dick.”

“Anywho, Brucie baby, I gotta get going,” Jason says, pointedly ignoring that statement. He takes a few steps, now directly opposite to his father on sides of the desk. “People to behead, drug lords to intimidate, same old same old. Have fun with the hot chocolate after a long night of breaking people’s limbs.” When Jason turns, Bruce can see, through his now unzipped jacket, that there’s deep red coloring his white shirt. 

“Jay,” he says helplessly, pleading eyes. 

“Don’t worry, bossman,” Jason says, rapping his bruises knuckles on the wood. The noise echoes through the night. “I won’t bleed out. What a tragedy that would be! I can see the headline now:  _ Jason Todd - Dead!  _ I’ll alert the media. Ah, wait, they’d just be like, ‘what, again?’” He laughs joylessly and walks, stops and stands in the doorway. “Goodnight, Bruce. Sleep well. ‘When thy little heart doth wake’-“ he begins, then turns back with an expectant look. 

“‘Then the dreadful night shall break,” Bruce finishes. “Goodnight Jay.”

And then he’s gone. Again. 

**Author's Note:**

> yeah yeah this is bad i am Aware tjats why i didnt post it for months (plus im hyperfixated on mcr rn so. Yknow no time for comics but) just wanted that sweet sweet validation anywsy lowkey kinda wanna make a series of bruce nad jason discussing books hm. 
> 
> Works mentioned are “The Lamb” and “The Tyger” by Sir William Blake, “The Pearl” by Unknown/The Gawain Poet, and “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman
> 
> Uwu bye i promise ill finish my gerbert ongoing soon


End file.
